1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator and more particularly to a structure for discharging cold air in a refrigerator, capable of reducing temperature difference between an upper part and a lower part, and a shelf and a basket.
2. Background of the Related Art
A refrigerator, which is an apparatus for storing food in low temperature, is classified into a refrigerator that is tens of liters—hundreds of liters in its volume, for home use, and a refrigerator that is tens of kiloliters in its volume, for business use, according to the volume accommodated by a refrigerator. Also, a refrigerator may be classified into an electric refrigerator, a gas refrigerator, an ice refrigerator, an electronic refrigerator, etc., according to cooling methods. Among them, an electric refrigerator is most widely used.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a refrigerator of a related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, a refrigerator roughly consists of a freezer 10 on the left side; a cooling chamber 20 on the right side; and a cooling circulating device for supplying cold air though not shown in FIG. 1. Also, a cold air supplying device 4 consisting of an evaporator(not shown) constituting the cooling circulating device on the upper part and an axial flow fan 3, is provided to the freezer 10.
Cold air is provided to the freezer 10 through the cold air supplying device 4. Here, the cold air is not directly provided but provided through a grill fan 5 positioned on the front side of the cold air supplying device 4.
Namely, the grill fan 5 guides so that the cold air generated from the cold air supplying device 4 may be discharged into the inside of a storing space.
For such purpose, the grill fan 5 has a freezer-discharging hole 11 on a predetermined position, while a freezer-absorbing hole 12 for absorbing cold air again, is provided on the lower end so that the cold air discharged from the discharging hole 11 may be circulated.
In the meantime, the cold air supplying device 4 has, on its one side, a cooling chamber-cold air supplying hole 21, through which cold air could also flow into the cooling chamber 20.
Like the freezer 10, the cooling chamber 20 also has a discharging hole 22 and an absorbing hole 23 for discharging and absorbing the cold air, respectively, and a mullion 6 is formed on the interface, for isolation from the freezer 10.
Also, a plurality of shelves is formed in the inside of the freezer 10 and the cooling chamber 20, so that materials to be stored may be put on each shelf, and a vegetable room for storing vegetables or fruits is separately provided at the lower end of the cooling chamber 20.
Also, the freezer 10 and the cooling chamber 20 are opened and closed, respectively, by a door, for being exposed to the outside. A door basket for receiving materials to be stored, is provided on the inner side of the door.
In the two-door type refrigerator of the related art, having the foregoing construction, materials to be frozen are put on the freezer 10 on the left side, while materials to be kept in a non frozen status, are put on the cooling chamber 20 on the right side.
A cold air supplying method in the inside of the refrigerator through the grill fan 5 and the cooling chamber-cold air supplying hole 21, is described in the following. Firstly, for the freezer 10 on which the grill fan 5 is formed, the inside of the grill fan 5 becomes a supplying tube itself for supplying cold air, and the discharging hole 11 is formed on the position where the grill fan faces each shelf, whereby temperature in the inside of the freezer 10 is uniformly lowered.
In the meantime, for the cooling chamber 20 where cold air is provided only through the cooling chamber-cold air supplying hole 21 connected with the cold air supplying device 4, the cold air is discharged only through the cooling chamber-cold air supplying hole 21, whereby temperature difference is large between the upper part and the lower part of the cooling chamber 20.
Supplying of the cold air into the cooling chamber 20 through the cooling chamber-cold air supplying hole 21 is performed through another grill fan 24 connected with the cold air supplying hole 21. Referring to FIG. 2, the grill fan 24 has a structure in which the cold air is discharged in horizontal direction in parallel with the shelf.
As the cold air discharged through the grill fan 24 having the foregoing structure is concentrated on the upper part of the cooling chamber 20, the temperature of the upper part is low, while the temperature of the lower part of the cooling chamber 20, through which the cold air whose temperature is raised as a result of cooling down the upper part of the cooling chamber 20 passes, gets indispensably high as much as the raised temperature of the cold air.
Namely, the temperature difference between the upper part and the lower part of the cooling chamber 20 gets large, whereby a user should put materials appropriate for semi-freezing on the upper part whose temperature is relatively low and put materials that is possibly stored in just a little lower temperature than room temperature on the lower part regardless of spare space in the inside of the cooling chamber 20, so that usage of the cooling chamber 20 is very limited.
Resultantly, the temperature of the upper part of the cooling chamber 20 becomes relatively low while the temperature of the lower part of the cooling chamber 20 becomes relatively high. Such temperature difference is originated from the fact that the temperature of the inside of the cooling chamber 20 is not uniformly optimized, and therefore, countermeasure to resolve such problem is highly required.